My Account

This book contains many proofs for Baker’s tenet that inner work is as important as outer work when preparing for collapse, but one in particular is my favorite. It’s an excerpt in which Baker reveals that while her methods have been called “too touchy-feely,” the same people who issue this dismissal often come back to her for help when their efforts to do things by other means have failed. For example, people who have disregarded her advice about improving their interpersonal skills have lived to regret it when intentional communities they’ve attempted to start have come to grief because of communication and conflict resolution issues.

From my perspective, whether we are in hospice or merely transitioning to a new story or both, these questions constitute our overarching assignment in the time we have left, and they form the crux of my work in the wake of our predicament. The pivotal task, I believe is an invitation offered on Page 66: “Imagine yourself on your deathbed, looking back on your life. What moments seem the most precious? What choices will you be the most grateful for?” This is hard-core hospice work.

As a former psychotherapist and as a student of eco-psychology, I was thrilled to learn of Bill Plotkin’s work several years ago if for no other reason that that he describes himself as a “psychologist gone wild.” Within today’s dismal mental health scene dominated by the pharmaceutical industry and the not-so-hidden agenda of producing malleable consumers who blend compliantly into the milieu of empire, Plotkin’s work resuscitates the mental health landscape with notions of vibrant humanity and unprecedented aliveness.

TheFiveStagesofCollapseis nothing less than a definitive textbook for a hypothetical course entitled “The Collapse Of Industrial Civilization 101” or perhaps a bible of sorts for an imaginary “Institute of Collapse Studies.” While to my knowledge no such courses or organizations presently exist, this book would be an essential aspect of any such entity’s credibility.